The line from the Washington administration over the past few days was that they were
“considering” a humanitarian oriented intervention to alleviate the threat and the dire humanitarian situation in Northern Iraq. Now in a positive turn of events the United States is going ahead with air operations against the Islamic State forces in that region.
With these forces 28-miles from
Iraqi Kurdistan's autonomous capital Erbil the geographical context of this operation shouldn't be even momentarily forgotten. The Kurds are the ones whose backyard in a geopolitical sense these Islamists are operating in. And the Kurdish Peshmerga have been doing their utmost to confront these forces.
Of course Iraq needs a political solution and certainly substantial reform is needed in Baghdad's governance which in part rendered the government and the military essentially helpless in the wake of Islamic States' rapid gains in the north last June. But relenting from aiding and assisting an imperfect Iraq combat Islamic State while it is the Kurds who have to face these genocidal forces head-on (those Yazidi people we have been hearing about are ethnically Kurdish people after all) would have been quite a sinister form of inaction for the United States to undertake. Especially given the fact that these Islamists will likely strike American targets first chance they get. And also because the Kurds themselves were a victim of Baghdad's poor, divisive and inept governance. Letting them, lightly-armed as they are, confront Islamic State alone would have been a horribly unjust situation to sit by and watch unfold.
Which is why I for one am very glad to see the United States finally taking some initiative in Northern Iraq. It was good to hear President Obama dub the Islamic State forces to be what they are, “barbaric”, and also
declare that, “We can act carefully and responsibly to prevent a potential act of genocide.”
American air-power alone won't defeat an irregular militia like Islamic State. But it can be effectively used in order to stop movements by the Islamic State forces between their captured territories as well as seriously hamper their efforts at consolidating their hold and control over those areas. Also coupled with extensive humanitarian aid it will serve to keep the tens-of-thousands of civilians that group displaced alive and in turn help stave off a very grave humanitarian catastrophe.
So all in all U.S. air-power if used properly will serve as a worthy endeavor to help Iraq and especially the Kurds who find themselves and everything they have built over the last few years, under the auspices of American forces, at risk of destruction.
That being said the United States shouldn't necessarily feel compelled to follow an air campaign up with an extensive deployment of boots on the ground. A decisive air campaign that will give those Iraqi state forces preparing to fight Islamic State time to get their act together and the government time to take the necessary reform and reconciliation steps to function as an effective governmental institution for the multi-denominational and multi-ethnic and cultural, and
imperfectly secular, state which Iraq on the whole broadly constitutes.
As I write the latest from Iraq is that U.S. F-18 jets have
struck artillery batteries the Islamic State were aiming at the Kurdish forces who are digging in to defend their capital. Hopefully in the coming days and weeks we'll see them further degrade the Islamic States' ability to project power and terror against their enemies to a point where a reinvigorated Iraqi military and society will eventually be able to setback all of this terror groups recent gains in that country.
